So this past weekend, I traveled to Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Now, you should know a few things about Amsterdam before you continue reading - first, Amsterdam has…let's say, "looser" regulations about certain things that are less acceptable in America. For example, prostitution is one of Amsterdam's biggest industries, and is quite prevalent. Also, the use of marijuana is widespread amongst the "coffeeshops" of Amsterdam.
So we rolled out of Luxembourg Friday afternoon and caught a 14:20 train toward Namur, where we changed trains. Then, our train from Namur to Liege-Guillemins got late, and we missed our next train. But, we eventually got on a train from Liege-Guillemins to Maastricht, and then on to Amsterdam.
We pulled up at about 21:00 into the main station at Amsterdam, and had to figure out how to get to our sketchy bed and breakfast. Turns out we have to get on this ferry across the river, and then we just had to walk up the street to get to this lady's house. Luckily, we found the place without any problems, and met Linda - the hippy lady. Backstory - so we ended up at this B&B because someone's marketing professor heard we were going to Amsterdam, and recommended this place, and actually made our reservations for us (turns out Linda was an old friend of his).
So, our rooms were very interestingly decorated: lots of strange black paintings and funky decorations. Also, though there was a bathroom in the hall, we had a shower in our room - but it was like a free-standing unit, with an umbrella on top. After we set our stuff down, we headed back into the city to get dinner - because we were starving and it was almost 22:00.
So we rolled into the city, and wandered around for a while looking for someplace to eat. Unfortunately, as we were getting into the city late, the only real option was McDonald's (well, there was a KFC across the street, but that just seemed too American for us). We got some cheap food, and then walked over into the Red Light district. It was not really what I expected. Basically, there are just streets lined with these places where girls have like their own little booths, with glass doors. And they just kind of stand there, and from my understanding, if you want to uh…make a transaction, you have to go up, knock on the window, negotiate the price, step into their office…I think that's about enough detail. Anyhow, I actually thought it was hilarious at one point, because this one girl was in her booth, not paying any attention to all the people outside - she was texting on her phone. What the heck? I mean, it's not like I was interested, but she wasn't even trying.
We strolled around for a little bit longer, and then ended up at Bulldog, the hostel that a bunch of other Miami students were staying at. We sat around and just hung out for a bit - many of the students were in different states of mind, so it was quite entertaining.
When all the other Miami students were clearing out, we decided to follow suit, but while they went to the Red Light District, we just went back to our place. After about probably 5 minutes, we were asleep.
I woke up at 6:45 on Saturday morning, because I had thought that the established game plan was to be up and ready to roll at 8 am. Again, miscommunications about waking up led me to just chilling and getting some work done Saturday morning. We had breakfast with Linda at around 9:30, which consisted of bread, a nutella-like chocolate and marshmallow spread, eggs with ham, coffee, and orange juice. It was awesome to get a hearty, warm breakfast.
We got back to the dock, got on the ferry (which I'm still not sure if it cost anything to get on, but we never paid for it, so whatever), and got back to the main train station. We then took a leisurely walk to the Anne Frank house. The city is very pretty, much more so during the day than it was the night before. Here is a picture of one of the canals in the city:
We eventually got to the Anne Frank house, and noticed that there was a substantial line, but heard it was going fast. Our group actually split up at this point, as several members were uninterested, and several were. I was among those who stayed and waited in line. It was only about a 40 minute wait to get in, but it seemed faster. So unfortunately, you were not allowed to take pictures inside the museum / house, but I can tell you all about it:
So it's actually quite a large facility, because the front part is a warehouse area, and in the back, where the 8 people actually hid, was a sort of annex house. Throughout the museum they had quotations from Anne Frank's diary on the walls, and a ton of artifacts or relevant news publications. They still had the original newspaper cutouts and posters that Anne and her family had put on the walls hung up in place. When you walk through the bookcase into the secret annex, you really do feel like you can connect with what they did for two years. They had the curtains drawn all the time, they could never go outside, and had to maintain silence as much as possible.
Basically, it was really cool. At the end especially, they had a ton of stuff about Anne's actual diary. They had a bunch of original pages and stuff - it seemed as though she was quite the prolific writer. It's a shame, such inspiration and hope, lost because of a genocidal maniac and his oratorical skills.
So then, we went to go meet our friends at the Heineken Brewery. Unfortunately, we went the wrong way and ended up going like 20 minutes out of the way before turning around and power-walking all the way to the Brewery. The 15 euros it cost to go on the "Heineken Experience" tour was a little steep, but I'd do it again for sure.
The first part of the tour was all about the history of Heineken. It discussed the company's founding, their awards, and the evolution of the business. Then, we got to see how they make the actual beer, and even got to taste the raw hops and barley (which were bitter and terrible). Next, we got to see all of the brewing facilities, which were large and cool but I had no idea what any of it was for. The next part of the tour was called "Brew U" and it was like an interactive ride in which they demonstrated what it would be like to become a bottle of Heineken beer. While interesting, all I wanted to do was get something to drink. We hadn't had lunch, and I was really thirsty from the power-walking. Finally, we got to have our tasting of freshly made Heineken beer. So they let us go into this room, and they just passed out glasses (15 cl, which means they were small), of beer to taste. The guy explained that there is a lot of foam in Heineken beer, and that's intentional to protect the flavor of the beer underneath. They instructed us to tilt the glass back when we drink so that the beer can get under the foam into our mouths - and how drinking foam would indicate your inexperience and overall lameness. It was harder than I imagined, but I managed to not drink all of the foam. Whatever. But my thirst was still not satisfied. Here is a picture of Heineken's tasting bar area:
So we continued on the tour, and got to see several exhibits about the marketing of Heineken and of all the stuff they sponsored. There was an exhibit about James Bond and another about the Champions League - both were really cool. Finally though, at the end of the tour, we got to the Heineken World Bar. We each were given two tokens upon entrance to the experience, and each token was good for a beer at the World Bar. So, that's pretty much what happened. We sort of skipped the line and just went up and grabbed our drinks. These were bigger glasses (maybe 25 or 30 cl - I honestly don't remember). But we got our second drinks, and had those too. And then I remember some strangers just left their full beers on our table, and I seem to recall somebody pouring some of that into my empty glass.
Moral of the story: Jimmy is a lightweight / beer has greater effects on you if you haven't eaten lunch. So then, we exited the brewery. Now, several of our friends had gone and rented bikes without us, so we had to take the tram back to the train station and get bikes of our own. That tram ride was probably the most fun I've had in a while - due to the fact that I was definitely beyond the point of "just feeling it" and would even go as far as to say I was "tipsy." Anyway, for some reason I let (Name removed for liability purposes) convince me that it'd be fine to get on bikes. I can't even believe the guy let me rent them, and even encouraged me to not get the 3 euro insurance! Probably not the best decision I've ever made in my life, but luckily nothing bad happened. I somehow managed to be able to bike around solidly for the rest of the evening - how, I'll never know.
We settled on going to a Tibetan restaurant for dinner. Some of the other Miami students had told us that all of the Chinese and Indonesian food was really good in Amsterdam (don't ask me why), but we ended up at a Tibetan restaurant. I had mixed meat and rice, which was warm and delicious. Also, it was cheap, I think it ended up costing like ten euros for the whole meal. So anyways, we paid, and headed back out into the city.
After getting our bikes, riding through the crowded streets, and parking them shortly thereafter, we decided it was time to go to another bar. So we ended up at the Blarney Stone, an Irish pub. It was by far the lamest Irish pub I've been to yet. I mean, there was like ten people there, most of them were already drunk, and they were all guys. If there is not a single woman in the entire bar, you can be sure you're at the wrong place. Anyhow, they did have cheap beer, so I somehow managed to procure a pint of Guinness (funny how that just happens).
So we were pretty tired, and after biking through the Red Light district at night, we had all had plenty of Amsterdam and were ready to sleep. So we made our way back to the train station, got on our ferry, crossed the river, and rolled up to our B&B. So, after such a long day, we still faced the challenge of getting into our place - Linda had supposedly left a key for us in the mailbox, but it was the wrong key, and we were supposed to use the back door. Ergo, we ended up knocking on the door, and Linda had to come let us in. Then, after a long and challenging day, I at least, had relatively little challenges in getting to sleep.
We awoke late Sunday morning, around 8:30 or so. After a quick shower in our room, we heard Linda calling us down for breakfast. Again, we had some delicious bread, coffee, and warm eggs. It is so clutch to get warm breakfast - they just don't do that in Europe very often. So then we got on our bikes, and rode back into the city (after taking the ferry of course). Here is a picture of our little ferry dock area (with the train station centered in the background):
We shopped around for touristy souvenirs (I really should buy people some gifts…). After that, we returned our bikes, went back to our B&B to pick up our backpacks, and hopped on a train after snagging some sandwiches for lunch. So after approximately seven hours of relatively uneventful train travel, we got back to Lux City, and thus ended another interesting weekend in Europe.
Thanks for reading, and feel free to check out more pictures on facebook (I'll put them up shortly after I post this blog).
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